


The Hand of a King

by Anonymous



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Elizabethan Period, Historical AU, M/M, so it's more like a 'what if' fic, though I fucked with history here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 21:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11860239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	The Hand of a King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [constructedmadness (dragonsquill)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/gifts).



He finds his golden prince in the castle gardens, lost among the lawns and flowers, almost obscured in the near-darkness, his piercing blue eyes fixed on the last rays of the setting sun. It’s his loose, simple white linen shirt that gives him away, billowing out in the breeze around his waist, keeping Kili transfixed. 

Fili did always hate the pomp and ceremony his mother insists on. 

Like this, he looks almost like a commoner, except nobody could ever mistake the depth of intelligence in his eyes, or the thoughtfulness of his touch for anything other than his own unique brand of Filiness. This is his home and he doesn’t feel the need to pretend here, not in front of Kili. 

“I didn’t know, I swear,” it comes out quiet and not at all full of the fierce emotion rearing up inside his chest. “Even the ambassador. He’s tried to hint I think, but I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t know King Thorin was sending a bride together with the letter!”

King Thorin. His father. But even now Kili can’t think of him as anything more than the ruler of Portugal, whom he met perhaps a handful of times, with his head always bowed.

Because Kili is a bastard. Illegitimate son of his father, sent to England and out of sight, ‘for his education’. They grew up together, him and Fili, chasing geese around the palace kitchens and getting themselves into all kinds of trouble. 

But now -

“You should marry her. “ Fili’s voice is hoarse and he doesn’t look at him when he says, “Return with them.”

“What?! No, I’m not going anywhere, Fili!”

“And what else is there? You’ll stay here, forever the captain of my guard, my armies? My what, my plaything? My dirty little secret, when I’m forced to marry? How do you see this working, Kili?”

“We will find the way! You are Queen Elizabeth I’s only son! The Heir to the throne of England, whom everybody loves, the Vanquisher of the Great Armada –“

“And you are Kilian I of Portugal!” Now Fili finally rounds up on him, but Kili withstands his anger like shores withstand the sea because he knows it comes from a place of despair. “He has made you legitimate and gone to the trouble of having the Pope recognise it! You have an Empire, Kili! A fleet, lands in the New World and riches beyond imagination! Technically I should bow down to you, for your station stands higher than mine.”

“Don’t!”

He doesn’t. Instead Kili’s eyes are drawn to the wet trails running down his cheeks, glimmering faintly in the dusk.

“Tell me that I’m wrong,” Fili whispers, quietly, so quietly that it breaks Kili’s heart, “or marry the girl.”

“I don’t want it. Any of it. I only want –“

The kiss is hot and desperate, tastes of salt, wind and Fili. He’s stunned that the prince would dare to do it here, out in the open, where anyone might see them, but it’s warmth and soft lips, safety he’s known his whole life and all the things that Kili would sacrifice everything to have. He loses himself in it, Fili’s hands along his neck, blond hair whipping around both their faces and his own hands on the warm skin of Fili’s waist. 

He’s life, always has been, and light and movement, never once worried about giving it all away.

“Accept the proposal and claim your crown.” Lips against lips, not ready yet to be parted. “Become my ally, so that we never have to face each other in battle. We could have an alliance, the greatest alliance the world has ever seen. Then we could perhaps see each other from time to time.”

“I will die. I won’t survive this.”

“No. You will endure. We will write to each other. Nobody will ever love you more than I do. Not your people, not your queen, no one.”

The blue eyes hold nothing but pain and love and this one promise that will never be broken and Kili feels like he can’t breathe. 

“For that, I want everything. Everything we could have ever had. One night, Fili. One night to last me a lifetime.”

There’s a sad ghost of a smile, a nod, and hands, unashamed, burning his skin. As they head for the entrance to the palace’s secret passageways Kili can’t help but think that he’s lived like a king all those years and now they’ve come to strip it all away from him.

They moan and scream and push, share their bodies and minds, feast on the pleasure, closeness. They give freely their secrets, things that hurt them, things they tell no one else. The entirety of who they are. 

Within a year Kili sits on the Portugese throne, but he breaks engagement to a prominent Italian princess from Naples within weeks of King Thorin’s death, causing an international scandal and risking the wrath of Rome. His penance lasts three years and sees him travel barefoot to Jerusalem to show his contrition – only then is he granted absolution.

Within two years Fili takes the throne of England, making his alliance with Portugal official. He never marries, despite mounting pressure from his parliament and foreign powers, claiming instead to be married ‘to the fair maiden of England.’ He is the last of the Tudor monarchs.

They can’t know this, but England and Portugal will remain allies for almost 500 years.

Close to a thousand miles away from mainland Europe, deep in the heart of Atlantic lies the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores Islands. Since around the year 1600, one of the islands, Santa Maria, becomes better known as the King’s Island. There are no Portuguese settlers here, no people at all, and two mighty fleets guard the surrounding waters from the safety of the coves of an island to its North – Sao Miguel. There are few buildings on the island, except for a small country house kept in an English style, with sprawling gardens, stables, and winding roads in every direction.

It’s four years before Kili sees Fili again, though a vibrant line of correspondence between them is maintained.

“Would it be very cheeky of me to ask for another night to last me a lifetime?” Ask the laughing dark eyes from the safety of a creaking old chair that Kili must have dragged outside of the main entrance where he could sprawl and enjoy the sun. 

“Probably,” agrees the stranger in a plain linen shirt, carrying a simple traveling pack and covering the last few yards towards the building. “But you have four years of marital duties to make up to me and I expect the annual winter fleet repairs will last at least four months. I have high expectations, you know.”

“Don’t you always?”


End file.
